Recognition of reproductive agents of popular knowledge and practices in health. Municipality of Andes, 2019

Abstract

Objectives: The study aims at recognizing the existence of agents carrying and reproducing popular practices and knowledge in health, their domains and dynamics in the social space and at geo-positioning their dynamics and establishing their relationship with the Basic Plan of Territorial Planning. Methodology: qualitative analytical study that combines critical geography through georeferencing techniques, —localization and spatialization—, using the QGIS Version 3.6 Nossa program, and ethnography through the use of in-depth interview techniques and observations, information that was organized and systematized by categories through the implementation of the ATLAS.ti version 9 program. Results: More than 60 agents were recognized and 48 were located. Two domains of popular knowledge were recognized: the Religious Magic, expressed in massage therapists (sobanderos) with secrecy, and folk medicine (Curanderismo) expressed in shamans, rezanderos and sobanderos. They are legitimized through their presence in social spaces in their 3 dimensions: material by carrying an identity and a domain inhabiting objects; mental which is loaded with relationships and symbolism; and political where they reproduce an overlapping and expanded commercial chain, linked to the area of commercial vocation delimited by the PBOT of the municipality. Conclusions: Agents, their practices and knowledge are determined and legitimized based on acts of social, cultural and political reproduction in the territory as a social space, and in their dimensions based on cultural expressions, symbolisms and rituals, material relationships from the exchange with objects and services and settled politically in the areas of territorial vocation.